Reflections

I've had a lot of time to think about my tri season this year, that had as many firsts and pbs as dissapointments. After the worlds I kind of just put off thinking about the season. However, I have had ample time to look back on the season that was, and see what I did well and didn't.

First off, my training was waaay better this year. A lot more intense, and my training partners were incredible (ironman and olympic champs).

However I think I went against one of the main principles in endurance sport training, the cycle.

At the beginning of the year before I joined Lifesport, I was doing tons of low intensity mileage. Half Marathons, long bike rides, and longer swims. Even at the beginning of my Lifesport training, we were in base mode. After that the training started to get more into build mode, where we did good trainer sessions in hard gears and spin ups. Finally, we started to get into racing mode, with great elk lake runs and time trials on the bike.

At this stage, I was on top of the world. I was crushing my last year's times. 6 minutes faster on a sprint was pretty good! Mentally, I was obsessed with the goals I put forward this year. It was a good time. I had 4 really good races, winning my age group and coming in the top 3 OA in all the races. That's when I lost site of the bigger cycle.

This was still early in the season. May and June were a long way to go from September. My coach even warned me not to go too hard in April, because the guy that is still impoving in May is dangerous in August.

The rest of the season there was no base training. All intense training, that brought me to the best shape of my life. The only problem was I completely lost my endurance. I didn't think it was that big of a deal for Olympic distance racing, but it was. I could compete in the pool on 100s and 200s, but would get killed in open water swimming or 500s in the pool. Running was fine, since I had the biggest base to go off of from winter, but biking was the same. In fact, the second best 1500m time of the year was in May, after Nationals.

All summer I didn't do the long endurance stuff that makes you able to compete for longer. I didn't do a bike ride longer than 2.5 hrs, and didn't do swimming intervals longer than 600m at a time. All of this caught up to me at the end of the season, where I would feel ok at the beginning of the swim, bike, and run, but die out later.

It's amazing how much you learn every year in this sport. Here I thought that my training couldn't get any better, but I was neglecting one of the most important rules of triathlon, building the year around two cycles.

I tried to make it one cycle, and paid the consequences. At least I had a good performance at Nationals, due to my first real taper of the year. I am pretty happy that I had a good performance there, since Worlds as we know was a pretty crazy triathlon.

Next year I have to be not as greedy. I cannot try and be in tip top shape for every triathlon I compete in, which is hard, because I am so competitive. I have to be patient at the behginning of the year, which I never am. So much to look forward to next year!!!!!

The pics from castle hill

These are the pics from Castle hill, that I took with Jasmine when we drove up it before. Pretty cool rock.

OMG a day of training!!!

Today was a great day. For starters, we are now in Townsville, which isn't that special but it is where you catch the ferry to Magnetic Island, which is apparently amazing. We do that in 2 days.

A little bit of backround on today. Yesterday a South African dude at our hostel offered to drive us up to a lookout just out of town and we readily accepted, knowing these opportunities don't come often.

Castle hill is about 2.5 km out of the city centre, but it looks like it belongs in the outback. It is 300m tall, and the road is about 2.9km. What makes it cool is that it is steep and look likes a desert wasteland. As we were driving up there were tons of people apparently running to the top, even thought it looked pretty tough. I knew at once that I was going to tackle this mountain.

So this morning I headed to the pool, which I have also been wanting to do, and put the run off until dusk, when it is only around 27 degrees out.

I headed to the beautiful Tobruk memorial pool, which is steeped in history. It is where the Aus Olympic team trained until 1965 when they invented heated pools. There were over 40 world records broken there, and it was neat to do a laidback 2km straight set in the morning sun.

At dusk, I prepared to do the Castle hill. OMG!

I don't even know where to start on this climb. I know the grouse grind has a hell of a lot of more elevation gain in the same distance, but it was 27 degrees and the sun was still strong enough to kick my ass.

First 3rd.
I felt pretty good. The lungs haven't been used much in a while, but I was ok. I noticed I was the only one running up. Lots of walkers, but no runners.

Second 3rd.
Wow I am dying. There were SOME little flat sections on the first part, but it is now incredible uphill, and I am going pretty slow with a 190+ hr.

Third 3rd
OMG I am going to puke. Still noone else running. Lots of people running DOWN. O man I had t opull it together badly on this last section. Only a few more switchbacks. There was two huge ass Parrots squaking at me, sounding like death was near. BUT I MADE IT!

16.5 of the longest minutes of my life. Totaled in with the run there and back it was over 50 minutes to cover 7 km.

The decent was possibly the worst part. I decided to head down an alternative dirt path, that turned out to be all steps, except they were steps that were to long to jump in one jump, and were so deep that I landed on my toes every time. After 1000 of these my feet felt like the arches had been beaten with a 2 x 4. I was so happy to get home. I wasn't ok though ha ha. Jas was worried. When the temp is still like 27, you can't cool down. Two hours after my shower I was still sweating a rediculous amount and felt light headed. But I did it! Take that out of shape body!!!!!!!

Pictures to come, but google Castle hill in Townsville

Update

Not much to say here folks.

Currently I am at Mission Beach, a small one road town 2 hours south of Cairns. It is so hot here day and night, and the only thing to do is either skydive, or lay on the 14km of uninhabited beach. It is an amazing place. It feels like you are on a deserted tropical island. The beaches are perfect and wide, lined with palm trees. Today we noticed a lizard chillin about 5m away from us. He was about 1.5m in length and about 30 cm wide. Pretty wild.


Training is great!!!! I run like once every three days and swim in the ocean recreationally! I tried running barefoot in the sand and I am really sore! It's a great feeling. I can feel every muscle in my foot working when I run barefoot, like we are supposed to have before big ass shoes came in the market. My achillies tendon is a little sore as well, but I have heard that this is pretty normal when you aren't used to it.

If Nick reads this good luck at RVM!